Coming in 2020--a new rover on Mars

NASA plans to launch another rover to Mars in 2020—this time with the aim of collecting soil samples and returning them to Earth, according to an announcement by NASA on Dec. 5.

NASA plans to develop a new rover similar to like Curiosity, which is already on Mars. Curiosity’s mission could be extended for five more years into a planned $2.5 billion project to look for habitats that could support microbial life. According to scientists, the new rover will use spare parts and engineering models developed for Curiosity. Replicating the rover's chassis, sky-crane landing system and other gear will enable NASA to cut the cost of the new mission to about $1.5 billion including launch costs, said John Grunsfeld, the U.S. space agency's associate administrator for science at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.

"The Obama administration is committed to a robust Mars exploration program," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, "With this next mission, we're ensuring America remains the world leader in the exploration of the Red Planet, while taking another significant step toward sending humans there in the 2030s."

“The 2020 mission will constitute another step toward being responsive to high-priority science goals and the president's challenge of sending humans to orbit Mars in the 2030s, with later plans of manned exploration of Mars’ surface,” the NASA statement said.

Nonetheless, major details of the 2020 mars mission have been kept under wraps as for now.﻿